Johannesburg - Satellite TV offering, TopTV, launched in May 2010 as a rival to MultiChoice's DStv, has started offering airtime sales on some of its channels for the first time.
"We are pleased to announce that following a successful testing phase with various stakeholders, TopTV airtime sales is now ready to accept advertising on eight commercial channels," the group said in a statement.
The channels included Top One, Top Movies, Top Movies +2, Top Movies +24, Top Crime, Top History, Top Explore and Top Gospel. This pool of channels was expected to grow over the next few months as negotiations with third-party channels were concluded, the group said.
TopTV airtime sales would start off with a manual booking process until the airtime sales system was implemented and officially completed in the first quarter of 2012.
The company said it had also entered into negotiations with Landmark, an airtime sales system used by other major broadcasters in the country.
Jean Meyer, vice-president for airtime sales, said: "We are very happy with the positive response from the advertising industry thus far.
"There is definite interest in the TopTV Airtime Sales offering and key decision makers at agencies as well as advertisers seem to share our vision of where this business will be in a year."
TopTV recently received its first 12-month data release on AMPS and was also currently being measured on TAMS. AMPS reported TopTV's past seven day's viewership at 134 000 households and 364 000 viewers. "This figure does not take into account the growth since the study was completed at the end of June," the group said.
At last take, during Naspers
[JSE:NPN] financial results as at end-March 2011, DStv's viewership in SA was put at 3.49 million.